Playing tall in big map

[Wolf]

Can you mind your own business and just play tall? Specifically on a massive map with many factions.

I'm not asking if it's optimal but is it doable and still somewhat enjoyable?

[Apheirox]

You can probably beat the AI on normal difficulty doing it, but it does put you at a disadvantage compared to an expanding opponent. If you have four cities instead of three, that´s an extra 33% economy size. This is really not a ´sit back and relax´kind of game.

[TyborPL]

If tall means 3 cities, then yes doable but sub-optimal. Less than 3 cities will hinder you too much IMHO. And of course you need good diplomacy with factions and vassals. Order and Nature affinity would be the best I think.

[Razorblade]

I mean, you can certainly mind your own business, but you're going to lose the game. Every victory condition will put you at odds with the other players, even ones that don't involve much physical expansion. Pacifism is not a long-term option.

That being said, if by "Tall" you just mean you don't want to micromanage a hundred cities, then the game has you covered. When conquering/founding cities, you are free to make them autonomous vassals who largely take care of themselves instead of directly controlling them yourself. Or, in the case of conquest, you can just Raze them completely. You can absolutely win a Domination, Magic, or Score victory with your capital as your only city.

If you're expecting a PDS grand strategy game, though, this isn't it. There are victory conditions, and you are meant to achieve them; the destination is the point of the game, not the ride. It's more like Civ than CK3 or Stellaris in that regard. That being said, it's more like Civ 5 or Humankind, where you can exert a degree of soft-power, rather than Civ 6, where you're forced to cover the entire world in cities.

[Wolf]

Originally posted by Razorblade:

I mean, you can certainly mind your own business, but you're going to lose the game. Every victory condition will put you at odds with the other players, even ones that don't involve much physical expansion.

That being said, if by "Tall" you just mean you don't want to micromanage a hundred cities, then the game has you covered. When conquering/founding cities, you are free to make them autonomous vassals who largely take care of themselves instead of directly controlling them yourself. You can absolutely win a Domination, Magic, or Score victory with only your capital and a few outposts.

If you're expecting a PDS grand strategy game, though, this isn't it. There are victory conditions, and you are meant to achieve them. It's more like Civ than CK3 or Stellaris in that regard. That being said, it's more like Civ 5 or Humankind, where you can exert a degree of soft-power, rather than Civ 6, where you're forced to cover the entire world in cities.

:(

I thought so. I am not really a huge 4x fan and yes I know this is that but wanted to verify. I like the look/aesthetics/background of the game. I did play planetfall and enjoyed but still too 4x-y for me...

[Midas]

There are game modes for this like Megacities (everyone has 1 city), and faction choices like Chosen Destroyers(you have only 1 city). You can make it work if you want to, but obviously your choices will be more limited if you want to always be able to play with just one city to manage.

Of course, since the option even exists (megacities), you can play it, and maybe you'll become comfortable enough with it that you'll be okay with more cities too. It's up to you.

[Ananym]

There are society traits to help you do that, but it's never going to be great. eXpand is in the name of the genre after all.

[Urk_da_WAAAGH!]

Originally posted by Wolf:

Originally posted by Razorblade:

I mean, you can certainly mind your own business, but you're going to lose the game. Every victory condition will put you at odds with the other players, even ones that don't involve much physical expansion.

That being said, if by "Tall" you just mean you don't want to micromanage a hundred cities, then the game has you covered. When conquering/founding cities, you are free to make them autonomous vassals who largely take care of themselves instead of directly controlling them yourself. You can absolutely win a Domination, Magic, or Score victory with only your capital and a few outposts.

If you're expecting a PDS grand strategy game, though, this isn't it. There are victory conditions, and you are meant to achieve them. It's more like Civ than CK3 or Stellaris in that regard. That being said, it's more like Civ 5 or Humankind, where you can exert a degree of soft-power, rather than Civ 6, where you're forced to cover the entire world in cities.

:(

I thought so. I am not really a huge 4x fan and yes I know this is that but wanted to verify. I like the look/aesthetics/background of the game. I did play planetfall and enjoyed but still too 4x-y for me...

As a tall player in all paradox games I find quite enjoyable to play tall in AoW4, as mentioned by others there's also the option when creating a map that is Megacities iirc that makes all players only have one city.

Also, having 5 cities against 3-4 in this game don't really represent a lot, a single city with 26 population is mostly better than two with 10-13 population.

[rane]

Originally posted by Pseudonym:

There are society traits to help you do that, but it's never going to be great. eXpand is in the name of the genre after all.

Don't you get heavily penalized by expanding? With the city caps and whatnot?

[Ananym]

Originally posted by rane:

Originally posted by Pseudonym:

There are society traits to help you do that, but it's never going to be great. eXpand is in the name of the genre after all.

Don't you get heavily penalized by expanding? With the city caps and whatnot?

Establishing vassals is a form of expanding
Chasing imperium bonuses to improve your city cap is a form of expanding

[darkholyPL]

Originally posted by rane:

Originally posted by Pseudonym:

There are society traits to help you do that, but it's never going to be great. eXpand is in the name of the genre after all.

Don't you get heavily penalized by expanding? With the city caps and whatnot?

If you keep to your city cap, then it's not penelized in any way, in fact it's a bonus, for obvious reasons. You can expand your city cap by spending imperium, and 5-6 cities are easily doable without too much fuss. You can go more than that, but with vassals you really don't need to.

And to OP, like others have said, you can put map traits that can force one city for everyone, or you can just play Chosen Destroyers to force a cap on yourself (but not others). A lot of people like to play this way, because it adds extra challange, but that goes against the whole 'chill' kind of game I think you're after.
But you can just play on easy. I mean that's what the difficulty options are for.

[Alexander]

Technically there's no "wide vs tall" in AOW4, since there's no factor that would limit the number of cities and the population in the cities at the same time, like happiness in Civ 5, for example. You grow each city as tall as possible and build/capture as many cities as you can. City cap can be increased by spending imperium, but it's rising costs with diminishing returns.

The main problem with having too few cities is unit production rate. Secondary concerns are economy (mana/gold/imperium production) and access to magic materials. The first problem can be to some degree mitigated by getting units in alternative ways (summoning, capturing, rally of lieges), the second one - by having a lot of vassals (also helps with rally of lieges).

Edit:
If by "playing tall" you mean "not going on imperialistic rampage", then yes, it is certainly possible. Diplomacy is an important part of the game. With luck and some effort you can make friends with some of your neighbors and be in sort of Cold war with other AIs. That will last until the endgame. As soon as a ruler gets too close to victory, all other rulers split int two alliances: the ones who support the winner and the ones that try to prevent them from winning (that is, if alliance victory is enabled).

Allied free cities contribute to Expansion victory, so it is definitely possible to "play tall" and win via diplomacy. Magic victory is very luck based: you either get gold wonders close to you, or not.

[Wolf]

Very good feedback, all. Appreciate it.

Originally posted by darkholyPL:

but that goes against the whole 'chill' kind of game I think you're after.
But you can just play on easy. I mean that's what the difficulty options are for.

Yeah kind of am going for a chill, have a few key powerful cities, protect my borders, create powerful leaders, intervene here and there, but yeah mostly chill and watch how the map plays out. Intention would be playing a VERY long game session with massive map, 12 or whatever max AI player count is. Again, not sure if it's really possible with this type of game. I did try it in Planetfall with mixed results. But this is possible in games like Total War and Paradox games like Stellaris and Crusader Kings. Again, I know...different genre..

[sinobas]

You're going to need the income of your cities, and ideally vassles, though there isn't a huge advantage to being spread out. In fact it might be better to not be.

[Alexander]

Originally posted by Wolf:

Very good feedback, all. Appreciate it.

Originally posted by darkholyPL:

but that goes against the whole 'chill' kind of game I think you're after.
But you can just play on easy. I mean that's what the difficulty options are for.

Yeah kind of am going for a chill, have a few key powerful cities, protect my borders, create powerful leaders, intervene here and there, but yeah mostly chill and watch how the map plays out. Intention would be playing a VERY long game session with massive map, 12 or whatever max AI player count is. Again, not sure if it's really possible with this type of game. I did try it in Planetfall with mixed results. But this is possible in games like Total War and Paradox games like Stellaris and Crusader Kings. Again, I know...different genre..

It is possible but will depend on the personalities of your neighbors. They may hate you instantly and eventually go to war anyways. Though Grievances system allows you to control it to some degree. Players get massive penalties for unjustified wars, so don't give them justification, or buy grievances immediately.

Befriending as many free cities as possible would fit your intended playstyle very much, so scout aggressively and get extra whispering stones. One of them is in the Order branch, so get some Order affinity.